Simon Cunich, Sydney
The September 15 Students for Peace and Justice conference, attended by 50 anti-war activists from universities across Sydney and from Wollongong University, called for a week of campus solidarity actions with the Palestinian people on October 9-13.
The conference was held at the University of Technology, Sydney (UTS). Plenary sessions and workshops discussed the dynamics of imperialism and resistance in the Middle East.
Speaking in the first session, Palestine solidarity activist Rihab Charida described how Israel suffered defeat in its 34-day July-August war against Lebanon. She also outlined the ongoing resistance to Israel's daily war against the Palestinian people.
Workshop topics included "Why Zionism is racist", which took up the history of Zionism and the establishment media's recent campaign to portray student anti-war activists as promoting anti-Semitism. Speaking at the workshop, Resistance national coordinator Fred Fuentes said: "There has been an attempt by Zionist student organisations and the corporate media to portray students taking a stand against Israel's wars as anti-Semitic. Anti-Zionism is not the same as anti-Semitism and attempts to conflate the two are clearly aimed at discrediting the anti-war movement.
"We have recently seen this used to attack free speech at Sydney University, where campus security have been given permission to remove posters that 'take a stand' on Israel and anti-war activists have been physically removed by security from debates with organisers of 'Israel Day' on campuses."
The second plenary discussed the impact of the "war on terror" in Australia. Shannon Price from Melbourne's Civil Rights Defence spoke about the campaign in Victoria to defend those being prosecuted under the "anti-terrorism" laws. Price said that the laws are aimed at developing a climate of fear to bolster support for Australia's involvements in the US-led wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. She explained the impact on students in this context with the Australian Federal Police able to seize post-graduate research material that is related to terrorism or deemed "sensitive".
Also addressed in this plenary was the role of universities in military research, most notably the Joint Strike Fighter project. UTS is one of the universities that has been targeted by the defence department to participate in the project. A protest shut down a defence department briefing at UTS in July, and UTS students are planning to continue campaigning against the project.
The final session of the conference was used to plan anti-war activities that will be coordinated across campuses in the coming months. Initiatives discussed included "Money for education not for war" student contingents at upcoming anti-war rallies (September 21 in Sydney), campaigns against military recruiters on campus, and plans for the Stop Bush 2007 campaign — opposing US President George Bush's visit to Sydney for next year's Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation summit.
The conference adopted a call for protests on September 28 in response to the Howard government's recent announcement of plans to significantly increase the size of the armed forces. In Sydney, a protest action will be held outside the defence department offices in Pitt Street on that day. The conference called for similar protests in cities across the country.